Video management systems can include a plurality of devices and sub-systems, such as, for example, surveillance cameras, video recorders (DVR, NVR, etc), encoders, switches, input devices, output devices, workstations, controllers, and viewers. Some video management systems can run twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and three hundred sixty-five days a year. These types of video management systems that monitor large surveillance sites can have hundreds of operators working shifts around the clock to continuously and constantly monitor video data streams collected from surveillance cameras in the system.
Surveillance cameras or other data collection devices that are part of video management systems can be configured with a basic description and name of the device. However, often such information is not sufficient to convey the need and importance of the area monitored by the device.
Video data streams from data collection devices can be displayed to a user at a workstation, for example, via closed circuit television (CCTV). The user at the workstation should preferably have some high level knowledge about the devices in the video management system, such as the location of the device and the reason for monitoring a particular area. When a user possesses such information, he can better focus his efforts to concentrate on data streams from certain data collection devices or areas and give less importance to data streams from other data collection devices or areas. However, when a user does not possess such information, there is a higher likelihood that he will miss or overlook certain incidents in a video data stream.
Known video management systems do not provide the desired high level knowledge to a user at a workstation and do not provide methods for providing or adding the desired high level knowledge. Instead, in known systems and methods, users must remember information specific to certain data collection devices and monitored areas. This can be a tedious and difficult task, especially in systems that include a large number of data collection devices and that monitor a large number of areas.
There is thus a continuing, ongoing need for improved systems and methods.